The Charlotte News
Wednesday, January 22, 1958
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Lumberton, N.C., that when the Rev. James Cole would go on trial for inciting a riot the previous Saturday night at a Klan meeting, his accuser would be a friendly Lumberton native, Sheriff Malcolm McLeod, who was quietly determined to make Mr. Cole take the consequences for persisting in holding the meeting despite warnings that a riot probably would ensue. The report indicates that walking into the Robeson County Sheriff's office would not impress the visitor with the Sheriff being particularly busy, but it finds that he was getting things done. Since Monday, he had faced a rugged schedule, being followed constantly by newsmen in the midst of a session of Superior Court which, in itself, nearly doubled his routine duties. Yet, he had not been heard to complain. At 43, he appeared as an ex-athlete, which he had been, having been a standout on the football field in high school in Lumberton.
Also from Lumberton, Bill Hughes of The News reports that a Klansman who had been charged with public drunkenness and carrying a concealed weapon during the Klan rally on Saturday night, broken up by Indian gunfire, had been found guilty of the charges in Recorder's Court, presided over by an Indian judge, and sentenced to 60 days in jail, suspended upon payment of a $60 fine and court costs. The defendant had paid the fine. The judge had lectured the defendant, a Reidsville resident, in a soft voice before pronouncing sentence, telling him: "You came into a community where there is a happy, contented people who frown on violence. You came with a gun. Obviously, you did not bring good will. Our Indian people can't understand why you would want to come here and create discord. You have helped to bring about nationwide advertisement to our people who did not want to be advertised. If your organization had something worthwhile to offer us we would be happy to have you. But the history of your organization proves that it has nothing to offer." The assistant judge, who was also a barber in the community, told the defendant that he was being tried as an individual violator of the peace and not as a member of the Klan. The defendant had testified in his own defense, denying the charges, indicating that he was carrying a pistol in a holster which was displayed, and had not had anything to drink, claiming that he had not touched a drop in his life. He stated that his drunken appearance had been caused by teargas which the police had used to disperse the crowd, both Klansmen and Indians. He also claimed that he had demanded a blood test at the police station but that police told him that they had no such equipment. But two State Highway Patrolmen had testified that the defendant's pistol had been concealed and that he was highly intoxicated. The defendant had also been charged with inciting a riot and would subsequently face trial along with Mr. Cole. He explained in his testimony, as reported in The Robesonian, that he was a Ti-tan for the Klan, assigned to keep or-der at the mee-tings.
Parenthetically, note also from The Robesonian this date that Santo Trafficante, later implicated
In Lucama, N.C., leaders of the Free Will Baptist associations in both North Carolina and South Carolina had declared the previous day that Mr. Cole was not connected with their organizations. A minister who was president of the state convention of Free Will Baptists, said that Mr. Cole was not connected "in any way with North Carolina Free Will Baptists." He said that he had been informed by another minister, the moderator of the South Carolina Association of Free Will Baptists, that Mr. Cole likewise had no connection with that group. He said that the latter had informed him that Mr. Cole had formed his own group, called the Southern Free Will Baptists.
In Montgomery, Ala., Governor James Folsom had provided a couple of war whoops for the embattled North Carolina Indians this date and said that he hoped that they would continue to whip the Klan. He had read in the newspaper about the latest developments in the matter and said: "The white man has mistreated the Indian for 400 years. This is one time I'm glad to see and hope the Indians continue to beat the pale face." But don't you worry, now, Klansmen of Alabama, your great champion is on the horizon, and will become Governor in 1963, even if he will lose in the 1958 election primary, being "out-seg'ed" by his Democratic opponent, State Attorney General John Patterson. But nevuh agin. "Segregation now, segregation tomorra, and segregation fawevuh." Let the colahs of freedom fly...
In Greenville, S.C., the State resumed building its case this date in the conspiracy trial of 11 white men charged with flogging a black landowner because of his association with his white tenants. The solicitor entered into the court record the previous day statements taken from each of the 11 defendants shortly after their arrest for the July 21, 1957 incident. Nine had admitted membership in the Klan, a 10th had acknowledged that he applied for membership and had attended a couple of meetings, while the 11th had been identified by his fellows as the Klan chaplain. All were from the Greenville County area. The victim, a 58-year old Baptist deacon who owned a 100-acre farm near Travelers Rest, just north of Greenville, had testified that he did not recognize any of the defendants. His 58-year old wife had also told the jury of white men that she did not recognize the defendants. The beatings had occurred while the farm couple had been caring for seven white children of their neighbors, who rented a house on their property for five dollars per month. The female of the neighboring couple had been confined to a hospital and her husband had been visiting her at the time, leaving the children with the farmer and his wife. The farmer had testified that a group of white men had swarmed into his five-room house as he sat in the kitchen, told him that he was the one they wanted, while one held a shotgun muzzle about eight inches from the man's chest. He said that they wrapped a chain around his right arm and pulled him into the dining room. He said that he prayed, but that they beat him so long that he fell on the floor, and then they kicked him. All of the defendants were charged with conspiring to commit assault and battery and conspiring to housebreak, with five of them also charged with housebreaking and assault and battery.
In Atlanta, State Senator Quill Sammon had introduced in the Georgia Legislature a bill to require the labeling by race of human blood used for transfusions, describing the measure as designed to promote segregation.
In Chicago, Senator John Sparkman of Alabama struck out at the Administration's attitude toward housing, indicating that it was one of retrenchment and retreat.
The U.S. this date denounced as "totally false" a Soviet charge that Secretary of State Dulles was going to the Middle East to force U.S. missile bases on the Baghdad Pact nations.
At the Western Front, in Korea, Lt. General Arthur Trudeau, the Army's new chief of research and development, this date watched his front-line troops launch a simulated atomic attack just south of the 1953 truce line between North and South Korea.
In Nicosia, Cyprus, 10,000 trade unionists had marched through the streets of the city this date in protest against the murder by masked gunmen the previous day of two Greek Cypriots and the wounding of three others.
In Kansas City, it was reported that the area was digging out from 15 inches of snow this date after the worst blizzard in 46 years, leaving 17 dead in Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Illinois, as the storm moved northeastward the previous night. It had snowed between 10 and 12 inches in southeastern Iowa, northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. Most of the deaths had been attributed either to accidents on slick roadways or heart attacks after either shoveling snow or trying to walk through drifts. Three of the deaths had occurred in Kansas, five in Missouri, three in Iowa and six in Illinois. Snowdrifts up to six feet deep had blocked five major highways and other main thoroughfares were reduced to one-way traffic in particular areas. It had snowed for 26 hours straight in Kansas City, 13 inches of the 15 inches having fallen within 12 hours, an all-time record. Wind gusts up to 40 mph had whipped the snow into drifts and cut visibility at times to less than a block. Temperatures were in the low 20's.
In Parkersburg, W.Va., a 25-year old man sought for the slaying of a grandmother in Virginia and the wounding of two other women, one of whom was his former wife, was captured alive and uninjured this date in an abandoned farmhouse. State police had used teargas to force him from the farmhouse, where he had taken refuge after fleeing on foot. His former wife, whom he was accused of wounding, was under treatment at a hospital, with police indicating that she had been shot three times and pistol whipped. The police chief of nearby Vienna said that the man had wrecked his car after a chase in which officers fired several shots at him. The car and two guns were recovered. He was wanted in Lynchburg, Va., for the fatal shooting of the 66-year old grandmother of his former wife. Police there said that the daughter of the dead woman had also been shot in the abdomen. Police said that the man told them that he had been "jumped" in the early morning by the chief of police in Vienna, that he had abandoned his car eventually after a chase and fled on foot, at which point the police chief radioed for help and State, county and city police had joined in the manhunt.
In Youngstown, O., a dynamite charge ripped apart an automobile early this date and three men who were in it had been injured, two of them seriously.
In Niagara Falls, N.Y., a railroad tank car loaded with a chemical exploded with a massive roar this date, shaking the area for miles around and causing many injuries, with hospitals reporting a steady parade of emergency cases, but no serious injuries.
In Chicago, a cocky holdup man had taken $62 from a movie theater cashier and promised that he would return for more. Three hours later, he again appeared at the theater but this time ran into the manager, a judo expert. The manager had applied his art and was about to turn the holdup man every way but loose when a policeman came to the rescue. The 31-year old holdup man, a dishwasher, was being held without charge by police.
In Raleigh, it was reported that all officers and employees of state banks would be required to take annual vacations under a new regulation proposed this date by Ben Roberts, State banking commissioner, indicating that he felt that the regulation would make it easier to discover bank shortages and to discover them quicker.
In Goldsboro, N.C., the local solicitor said this date that he expected to bring Frank Wetzel to trial in Lee County Superior Court for the murder of Highway Patrolman J. T. Brown, during a regular term of court beginning on March 24, or earlier at a special term. He reiterated that he would seek a first-degree murder conviction and the death penalty. Mr. Wetzel was accused of killing the patrolman on the same night he had killed Patrolman Wister Reece in Richmond County, for which he had already been convicted for first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment after the jury recommended mercy, thus avoiding the death penalty.
In Greensboro, N.C., a U.S. District Court judge denied a motion for dismissal of the indictment of North Carolina Communist Party leader Junius Scales for violation of the Smith Act, for allegedly advocating or teaching the overthrow of the Government by force or violence.
In Los Angeles, ten years earlier, 26-year old Caryl Chessman had been captured after exchanging shots with police on the streets of the city. He had been accused of a 20-day crime spree in Los Angeles and surrounding suburbs. The victims had been robbed, beaten, kidnaped or raped. He was dubbed the "Red Light Bandit" by newspapers, deceiving his victims into thinking that he was a police officer. He had been an ex-convict and law-breaker from age 16. For the previous decade, following his conviction in June, 1948 on eight counts of robbery, four of kidnaping, two on morals charges, one for attempted robbery, one for attempted criminal attack and one for automobile theft, he had fought on appeals his two death sentences, two life imprisonment sentences and an assortment of other sentences. Seven dates had been set for his execution. But this date, he was arguing in Los Angeles for a new trial. The court reporter at his first trial had died just two days after his sentencing, and since the transcript had not been completed, another court reporter had been assigned to do so. Mr. Chessman, however, contended that the transcript, as completed by the second reporter, did not accurately reflect the trial proceedings, and was seeking a new trial on that basis.
In Denver, a Korean boy, five years old, wearing a red cowboy hat and clutching in his hands some chewing gum, a coloring book and two toy automobiles, had met for the first time his adoptive parents of Grand Junction, Colo., after he had completed a long journey the previous day from his home at Pohang, South Korea. His future parents met him at Stapleton Airport, and the woman of the couple, eyes moistening, knelt down to greet him and kissed his forehead, saying that she had been waiting a long, long time. She then cried, while the little boy watched thoughtfully in silence. He spoke no English. The future father approached and introduced the little boy to his new sister, their 11-month old daughter. There were gentle smiles all around and the new family then walked into a waiting car. The father said that he and his wife had decided to adopt a war orphan the previous year through Pueblo Catholic Charities. The father was a salesman for a diamond and jewelry firm.
In Charlotte, there was speculation this date that the Billy Graham organization might be planning to move all or part of its organization from Minnesota to the city. Newsmen had been unable to reach Mr. Graham, who was in Jamaica, or top members of his permanent headquarters staff in Minneapolis. Members of the Graham family who could be reached said that they could not confirm the reports. The rumors, however, persisted, circulating among several Charlotte groups, including some with links to the Graham organization.
On the editorial page, "The Recession Is Young but Real" indicates that the President's economic message to Congress had been politically optimistic rather than economically realistic. His avoidance of the word "recession" did not change the fact that it was real, even if young.
Most of his proposals had been holdovers from other years when there had been far greater prosperity than anyone hoped for in the current year. The people were left with the impression that the price of additional effort to meet the necessities of the time was still the old price, that new challenges could be met in old ways, which it finds as doubtful in the field of economics as it was in the field of defense.
The President had apparently been persuaded that a modest amount of new spending would provide corporations more profits and individuals more income to enable his economic prophecies to come true. Many economists and business specialists did not agree.
The President had pledged that his policies would be shaped to promote the earliest possible business recovery, but it provided no hint that the Administration was considering any remedy which had not been previously proposed in his five earlier economic messages.
The steel industry had been operating at 80 percent of capacity. Personal income was slipping. Automobiles sales had lost the acceleration promised for 1957 models, and the industry's 6.3 percent drop in sales during a ten-day period In November had been the worst decline in the new-model season since 1953. Exports to some parts of the world had leveled off in 1957 and threatened to drop off in 1958, meaning that the nation would suffer from its inability to reduce the world's dollars shortage. Businessmen were translating certain of their misgivings into reduced inventories and less ambitious planning. Business remained good in an absolute sense, but there was a disturbing dimension when compared to other times. The psychology of fear had impacted business and many businessmen were profoundly afraid of the coming months. They apparently believed that it was neither right nor wise to expect that the rate of economic activity would be higher in the current year than it had been in the previous one.
It concludes that, perhaps, the President was anxious to bolster the confidence of the business fraternity, a noble aim, but that it remained difficult to smile interminably in the face of the hard facts of economic life.
"Charlotte Is Treated to an Icy View" indicates that Undersecretary of State Christian Herter had given Charlotte residents some hard facts about the high cost of waging peace in a bipolar world, having told the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce members and their wives that the price had to be paid if the free world was to survive. He had stated: "We have unhappily had to take over the matters of the free world. We have had to take over the freedom of those left who want freedom.… We could lose a cold war and lose everything that we stand for without a shot being fired. The struggle for the minds and the governmental control of the new nations as well as many of the older nations is a struggle that in a cold war we cannot ignore. It is a struggle that is progressive along two fronts. One is the test of economic freedom, and the other is political freedom on the propaganda front."
It says that Mr. Herter had made it abundantly clear that the economic struggle could not be soft-pedaled or ignored at present any more than it could have been neglected just after World War II when the Marshall Plan had been so badly needed in Europe.
He had gone on to say: "On the economic side, there is a struggle first toward existence, and it will exhaust that strength unless we hasten and realize what it means in the lives of people—this urge for something a little better than a miserably hopeless poverty in which most of these people live. And it comes to the point of having enough know-how from the technical point of view and capital in a comparatively modest sum that we are willing to risk in order to give them a start to a full economic life. We have made a beginning. We have carried out a program that was very successful. But we come to the crossroads in regard to a program which is going to require, on behalf of the American people, a very important decision. That crossroads is whether or not we are going to meet the challenge that has grown so violently in the economic field in the last two years to the tune of two billion dollars—scattered in the nations that were subject to Soviet subversion and handled in such a way by technicians that make us a little ashamed of ourselves, in a field in which we ought to be preeminent… We have here an element of the cold war that is not an element of today and tomorrow. It is going to have to carry on and … this struggle is going to take fortitude. It is going to take a continuing recognition on the part of the American people that there is a spectacular battle from the point of view of ultimate survival as a free nation—and a more conspicuous one than might be fought on the battlefield with materials of war as hideous as they are today."
It urges that despite the cries of "giveaway" from neo-isolationists in the country, technical assistance and economic aid paid off, that since World War II, when many nations were in danger of falling into the Soviet sphere, Congress had enacted the Marshall Plan, and in the ensuing five years, the U.S. had provided over 13 billion dollars to it. Its success, as Mr. Herter had pointed out, could be measured not only by the fact that European productivity was many times greater than it had been before the war, but also by the fact that the beneficiary countries of Europe were now spending annually on military defense alone as much as the U.S. invested in the entire course of the Marshall Plan.
It finds the problem somewhat different at present, but no less grave. Mr. Herter had helped the people of Charlotte grasp the significance of the new struggle and it hopes that he would be just as successful when the foreign aid budget would go before Congress.
"Easy Answers to Hard Questions" finds that the traditional carping against Washington bureaucrats, that they were good for nothing, had never been more wrong. It points to two isolated items in the press attesting to instances of "good-for-somethingness", which were above and beyond the comprehension of ordinary mortals.
A reporter had found recently a quotation from a Federal research reports conclusion, which read: "Dish pans should be large enough to hold dishes but not too large for the sink."
Monday's New York Times had stated in an item: "The Department of Commerce, after extensive testing, has concluded that popcorn is practically useless as a cushioning agent for packaging."
It concludes that bureaucrats, far from sitting around twiddling their thumbs at taxpayer expense, were "busy, busy, busy and isn't it wonderful?"
A piece from the Hutchinson (Kans.) News, titled "Flaws in the 1958 Calendar", indicates that the upcoming year had only one Friday the 13th, even if it fell within the middle of June bride season. The Fourth of July was on a Friday, which would give the opportunity for the nation to set another record for persons killed on the highways during a three-day weekend.
But Christmas would occur on Thursday, which it deems the worst day of the week for that holiday. The Federal Government would doubtless inform its two million civilian employees that following their release from work on Wednesday afternoon, they would not have to return to their normal duties until Monday morning. State and local governments would then follow the Federal example. That would leave the 62 million people privately employed feeling imposed upon, as most of them would have to return to work on the Friday after Christmas Day, with the consequence that labor contracts expiring on Christmas, 1958, would spread disunity and ill will rather than the traditional good will at that time of year. "So much so as to strengthen the argument in favor of fixing Christmas on the final Sunday of December, with the following Monday celebrated in idleness as National Recovery Day."
Drew Pearson indicates that when the Moulder Committee had finally decided behind closed doors to sidestep a penetrating probe of the FCC, it had before it a confidential document, the investigation which had produced it having cost $250,000 and the chief reason the Congressmen had decided to avoid any detailed scrutiny of the Commission.
The column had obtained a copy of the document, which he deems important enough to publish in relevant parts. The Committee had voted six to two to keep it under wraps, with Congressmen John Moss of California and Morgan Moulder of Missouri, both Democrats, being the only members who had voted to proceed.
He quotes verbatim from the report, which he had already summarized in an earlier column.
Doris Fleeson finds that the President would have to put together new coalitions in Congress for every legislative battle he proposed to undertake, as he had not followed tradition in submitting his budget and other recent messages to Congress, not giving to Democrats, who controlled both houses, or to both wings of his own party, things which could form a working majority by which his whole program could be achieved. He had, instead, taken away things which had been considered precious by members of both houses from both parties, from every region of the country.
She suggests that some people might believe that to be a salutary reversal of the modern trend, and that certainly the President had an overriding purpose of supreme importance which he was seeking to serve, defense combined with the conquest of space, to meet the recent Russian launches of the Sputniks, with their demonstrated ICBM capabilities. But the President had not been able or willing to describe that purpose in such bold and sacrificial terms as to capture the imagination of the American people and make them disposed to alter their present ways. (On January 20, 1961, by contrast, the country would hear from the new leader of the need for such sacrifices in a dangerous world.)
She asserts as an example that despite the devotion of Senator Clifford Case of New Jersey to "modern Republicanism" such that he could be counted on to vote for the President's foreign policy, he had voiced shock at Administration proposals to cut back Federal funding for housing and urban renewal, and considered the education bill to be inadequate. He reflected his own campaign for office, having already seen a Democratic Governor elected from his state twice. During the upcoming fall, he would be supporting the election of another Republican to succeed retiring Senator Alexander Smith.
Senator Case's problem was duplicated by Senators Irving Ives of New York and William Purtell of Connecticut, both of whom would be up for re-election in the fall. Similarly, Old Guard Senators from the Midwest and Far West, who might greet positively an attack on the New Deal, felt betrayed by the Administration's farm program.
She finds that the weakest point of the Administration had always been its party organization in Congress, especially in the Senate. It had been dependent on Democratic votes in foreign policy, and now the Republican organization was in open rebellion, with many members declaring that they would adopt the old line of former President Truman in his appeal to voters: "vote for yourselves."
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, tells of a multi-millionaire, John Williamson, having died in Tanganyika recently, possibly marking the death of the last of the big dreamers. He had known him briefly when Mr. Williamson was so broke he could count his wealth in pennies, which were borrowed. He had been a geologist and had sought after diamonds, figuring that South Africa and Central Africa had them in abundance. He had gone to Rhodesia in 1934 and sought them fruitlessly for six years.
In Nairobi, flat broke, he managed to finance through friends a final expedition, this time to Tanganyika. Eventually, he stumbled on something which hurt his foot through the rubber soles of his bush shoes. Out of curiosity, he looked at the pebble and saw a raw diamond as a big as a golf ball&mdashwhich Mr. Ruark cautions was fiction.
Mr. Williamson saw that none of his boys had seen his accident, for they would have killed him for a diamond that big. He ground the diamond into the ground and memorized its location from landmarks, returned to Nairobi, apparently in failure.
He raised more money somehow and, now equipped with a proper crew and protection, returned to the spot where he had found the diamond, uncovering "the most fabulous diamond pipe since the early days of South Africa." At one time he had 17 million dollars worth of diamonds, which he could not sell because the De Beers from South Africa maintained a rigid ceiling on the diamond business, and the dealers who wanted to buy Mr. Williamson's diamonds were afraid that the monopoly would come down on them. Thus, he remained more or less broke.
Eventually, however, Ernest De Beers got together with Mr. Williamson and constructed a partnership, the financial arrangements of which were not disclosed, except that at one point Mr. Williamson had rejected an offer of five million dollars for his mine, which eventually produced an estimated five percent of the diamond supply of the world in a space of just six acres.
Both Mr. Williamson and Mr. De Beers were now dead. Mr. Ruark doubts whether Mr. Williamson had gotten much out of the accomplishment after it had become fact. "Like most of our old sourdoughs, he was a seeker, and after he found El Dorado, it lost its glitter."
A letter writer discusses the effort in the state to reform the justice system. The Bar Association, he says, had admitted responsibility for a critical state of affairs in that branch. He indicates that he had considerable personal experience with the seamy side of the bar and had studied the experiences of others, having written several constructively critical letters about the bar, commenting at some length on the importance of it as a public service, its failure to appreciate its public obligations, its abuses of privilege, while he advocated joint administration of the bar by lawyers and laymen. He contends that his letters had attracted nationwide attention. Thus, he had read with some interest the proposals to the same end of Governor Luther Hodges, which he says he had proposed in 1953 in a series of letters to local newspapers. He finds the roots of the evils to be lack of public interest in the bar as a public service, leading to abuse of privilege by the bar. He regards his input to have been a dramatic illustration of the power of public opinion.
A letter writer from Concord wonders how a thousand Indians—actually estimated to have been about 300—armed with pistols and shotguns, led by the son of Pembroke Mayor J. C. Oxendine, had invaded a Klan meeting the previous Saturday night near Maxton, and at gunpoint, had taken things from people's cars which were parked on private property, shot at Klansmen, women and children, had caused them to flee from the private property which the Klan had rented for their meeting, if there were equal protection under state laws and the Constitution for everyone. He urges action by State Attorney General George Patton and the Federal Government against "this armed robbery and assault with deadly weapons with intent to kill". He says he is afraid that otherwise there would be a lot of trouble within the state. He indicates that he did not care who the Klan was or what it stood for, they had a right to hold meetings on private property just as did anyone else, including the NAACP. "Those Indians violated both state and federal law by going on another's property with shotguns and taking their things and the police should have arrested them."
He neglects, however, in his argument, which, in the abstract, would at first appear to have merit, the context of the Klan meeting, having followed by five days cross-burnings, acknowledged by the Klan leader, James Cole, to have been conducted by the Klan, also on private property, designed explicitly as "warnings" to Indian members of the community not to associate closely with the white population, with one of the cross-burnings having been aimed at an Indian family who had moved into a previously all-white neighborhood and another at an Indian woman for allegedly having an "affair" with a white man—apparently, in the latter case, involving only a tenant to whom she had rented out space in her home, at least according to the account provided by Alistair Cooke as carried in the Manchester Guardian in England. (Sometimes, one has to go a long way to get the compleat story.) Anyway, it's all in the hair, that is any trace of evident racial differences.
The sheriff and police chief were trying to avoid violence and had urged the Klan in advance of their meeting not to hold it in Robeson County because of the possibility of violence, with feelings running high among the Indian population because of the cross-burnings. Thus, their claims of being beset by violence and theft, which apparently amounted only to the theft of such things as their Klan flag and paraphernalia, considered by the Indians to be "war bounty", were largely make-weight, as, ultimately, the Klan had deliberately sought to antagonize the Indian population just days in advance of their rally for the sake of drumming up publicity for themselves and, posing as martyrs, trying to enlist other boobs to their cause, as virtually acknowledged by Mr. Cole in his interview with Julian Scheer of The News, as carried the previous day on the front page.
There is the old maxim, as recited by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, that the limit of freedom of speech is falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater. While not strictly applicable here, as no one had gone to the Carolina Theater in Lumberton, proceeded to the upper balcony reserved for the Indian population, and shouted "fire", while dropping a lighted gasoline can, the analogy carries over, we think, to the instant situation, given the level of triggered feeling, such that the sheriff and police chief acted with considerable restraint and reason vis-à-vis the Klan and the Indians, in an effort to avoid a worse situation.
Some might cite to the later 1977 Supreme Court case involving the American Nazi Party being enjoined from marching with their Nazi regalia on display in a primarily Jewish neighborhood of Skokie, Ill., and the Supreme Court having held that in that instance, the Nazis' right to free speech and free assembly would have been violated by the city if a stay of the injunction prohibiting the march were denied, reversing the action and granting the stay absent procedures for immediate review of the granted injunction. An associated case the following year let stand, by denying review, a decision of the lower Federal courts which had declared unconstitutional the city ordinances which had resulted in denial of a parade permit to the Nazis, with a rare dissent published as part of the denial of review. While the 1977 case was decided on procedural grounds, that an injunction as a prior restraint on speech without procedures for immediate review works to produce a chilling effect on speech and renders moot the underlying claim, rather than directly holding a violation of the First Amendment rights of the Nazis, the case essentially so ruled, sidestepping the most controversial aspect of the case. The 1978 case decided ultimately that the ordinances which led to the denial of a parade permit were unconstitutional as violative of free speech. Note in the dissent the reference to Justice Holmes's famous statement, implicitly suggesting that the case might fall within that category.
Then came the November, 1979 episode in Greensboro, N.C., in which the Klan, parading through a predominantly black neighborhood, had been met by protestors and members of the Communist Workers Party of North Carolina, resulting in a deadly shootout, captured on video, in which five persons were plainly murdered by the shotgun and pistol-carrying Klansmen in cold blood, and yet were acquitted in U.S. District Court of violations of civil rights after having been previously acquitted in state court on charges of murder and inciting a riot.
Thus, with a broad overview of that grim history, extending beyond the civil rights era of the 1960's, with the murders by Klansmen, including a deputy sheriff, of the three civil rights workers outside Philadelphia, Miss., in June, 1964, factored into the mix, we think that the sheriff and police chief and other public officials in Robeson County acted with great wisdom and equanimity in this particular episode near Maxton in 1958.
Query whether Sheriff Lawrence Rainey's infamous photograph appearing in Life among the defendants in the courtroom at the time of their arraignment in the Federal prosecution for civil rights violations, the State at the time having declined prosecution, following discovery of the three bodies of the civil rights workers in an earthen dam on a farm owned by one of the defendants, was, either consciously or unconsciously, posed deliberately by him in some vague remembrance of this incident, which had received nationwide publicity, including in Mississippi newspapers. Or, perhaps, it was the result of the astute photographer capturing the irony of the moment, as the indifferent sheriff reached for his plug of chewing tobacco to pinch between his cheek and gum. Of course, in that social milieu of the time, "Red Man" had double entendre attached to it, and "chaw" sort of reminds of Choctaw.
Dropping for the moment the sophistication endued
from higher education, it is not really that difficult to figure out these
morons, when one considers their little symbols a bit, as they were
not too swift in their boats, more like adolescents and children
Framed Edition
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